But ambassadors from the 47 member states would have found no journalists at the opening reception to bring them up to speed on the latest twists. Foreign Office staff made sure that reporters were kept out of the Brighton Museum, much to the annoyance of Ministry of Justice officials who wanted to show off the original Treaty of London that created the Council of Europe in 1949.

So I had dinner instead with Thorbjørn Jagland, the former Norwegian prime minister who became secretary-general of the Council of Europe in 2009.

He broadly welcomed the Brighton declaration, the text of which was finally agreed by officials on Monday and which will be published at 3.30pm today. As Jagland said in his speech to delegates this morning, the process of reform initiated two years ago had "strengthened the role and authority" of the European court of human rights - which the Council of Europe supervises.

Speaking to me last night, the council's most senior official particularly welcomed a proposed amendment to the human rights convention that should make it easier for the court to declare cases inadmissible.

Article 35, recently amended by protocol 14, allows the court to throw out individual cases where an applicant "has not suffered a significant disadvantage". At the moment, this power can be used only if a case has been considered by a court in the applicant's own country.

Member states have agreed to remove this condition, allowing the court to reject trivial applications that have not even come before a domestic tribunal.

In January, Jagland told me he was concerned about a proposal put forward by the UK last October under which an application could have been declared inadmissible "if it were substantially the same as a matter that had already been examined" by a national court applying the human rights convention.

He regarded that as dangerous because it could have prevented the human rights court from considering cases brought against countries with questionable human rights records.

Last night, Jagland was pleased that the draft declaration had been amended to make it clear that the Strasbourg judges would have the last word on whether a case had been properly considered at national level.

In his speech this morning, the secretary-general congratulated the British government, whose six months chairing the Council of Europe's committee of ministers comes to an end next month, for their "efforts to reform and strengthen" the court.

That's not quite how the prime minister glossed it in his speech to the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly in January. On that occasion, David Cameron argued that decisions taken at national level should be treated with respect.

But government sources pointed to more than 20 reforms in the draft declaration that would fulfil the PM's pledges. For the first time, the principle of subsidiarity and the doctrine known as "margin of appreciation" - both developed in the court's case-law - would be included in the text of the human rights convention.

And how does all this affect Abu Qatada? The human rights court issued a statement yesterday saying that a panel of judges would decide whether his case will be considered by the grand chamber - in effect, whether he will have permission to appeal. The statement said: "The panel will make its decision in the light of the chamber judgment and the applicant's request."

What this is meant to cover is not just the possibility that the Strasbourg judges will not only uphold their earlier decision, in favour of the government, that deporting the radical cleric to Jordan would not expose him to the risk of torture. It also allows for the possibility that the court will accept recent Jordanian assurances that Abu Qatada will receive a fair trial.

Far from delaying matters, the appeal that the British government was so keen to avoid might see Abu Qatada deported more quickly than if he had had to take his case through the appeal courts of England and Wales.